From what i get from scientists who have worked in ESAS and elsewhere at the Byrd center agrees with consensus. An interesting titbit is that they are more worried about fossil carbon release (methane and CO2) from permafrost than buried methane hydrate.

But most of all they are worried about the world proceeding with BAU, much more than putative natural tipping points.

KenThe fact that "boiling oceans" were witnessed and photographed precludes the possibility that these methane bubbles were "absorbed in the water column".When a permafrost layer is hundreds or thousands of feet in depth, it may survive multiple melting events. Once "Boiling Oceans" are observed, it seems reasonable to assume that the cap has thinned, and that a broader collapse is possibly eminent.

While extreme endothermic reactions are inevitable as the CH4 changes phase, the same is not applicable to the CH4 simply capped over.

Your argument re. the exploitation of large fields reminds me of the Yamal field so recently opened. With sanctions in place & the low price for gas, I'm unsure that the Russians can afford a similar project, or that they have any need to explore additional sites at this time.

BAU is a problem that theoretically can be solved. The ESAS's possibly catastrophic out-gassing, if S&S are correct, is something that has been building since the oceans inundated the shelf as the last ice age waned. We may be speeding the process up a bit, but without another ice age in the near future, the out-gassing will occur.Terry

Terry,

The thawing of the permafrost, even at the accelerated rates under bau scenarios, doesn't release enough methane at once to spike the temperatures. The "methane time bomb" and "clathrate gun" are clearly related to sudden releases of large amounts of methane. Take a look at the title of Shakhova and Semiltov's 2019 review paper, "Understanding the Permafrost–Hydrate System and Associated Methane Releases in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf".

Keep in mind that the permafrost is already melting and has been since the last ice age. Here is what the IPCC AR5 Report stated about permafrost thaw in 2013 (with the preceding summary on human emissions included for comparison). I have bolded the RCP8.5 scenario results for the comparison.

Quote

Taking climate and carbon cycle feedbacks into account, wecan quantify the fossil fuel emissions compatible with theRCPs. Between 2012 and 2100, the RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, andRCP8.5 scenarios imply cumulative compatible fossil fuel emissionsof 270 (140 to 410) PgC, 780 (595 to 1005) PgC, 1060 (840to 1250) PgC and 1685 (1415 to 1910) PgC respectively (valuesquoted to nearest 5 PgC, range derived from CMIP5 model results).For RCP2.6, an average 50% (range 14 to 96%) emission reduction isrequired by 2050 relative to 1990 levels. By the end of the 21st century,about half of the models infer emissions slightly above zero, while theother half infer a net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere. {6.4.3, Table6.12, Figure 6.25}There is high confidence that reductions in permafrost extentdue to warming will cause thawing of some currently frozencarbon. However, there is low confidence on the magnitude ofcarbon losses through CO2 and CH4 emissions to the atmosphere,with a range from 50 to 250 PgC between 2000 and 2100 under theRCP8.5 scenario. The CMIP5 Earth System Models did not includefrozen carbon feedbacks. {6.4.3.4, Chapter 12}

And the "boiling oceans" you mention relate to carbon loss from seeps in the ocean floor. These have been observed for years and there are numerous studies about how the gases transfer to the ocean as the bubbles rise. In the case of thawing permafrost, there are also numerous studies showing that significant amounts of the methane are digested by microbes before the bubbles rise, so that gases in the bubbles are not methane.

While the RCP 8.5 for CMIP5 shows between 50 and 250 PgC to be released by 2100, the CMIP5 models did not include any of this additional carbon in the atmosphere into their projections of temperature response.

AbstractClimate warming in regions of ice‐rich permafrost can result in widespread thermokarst development, which reconfigures the landscape and damages infrastructure. We present multi‐site time‐series observations which couple ground temperature measurements with thermokarst development in a region of very cold permafrost. In the Canadian High Arctic between 2003 and 2016, a series of anomalously warm summers caused mean thawing indices to be 150 – 240 % above the 1979‐2000 normal resulting in up to 90 cm of subsidence over the 12‐year observation period. Our data illustrate that despite low mean annual ground temperatures, very cold permafrost (<‐10°C) with massive ground ice close to the surface is highly vulnerable to rapid permafrost degradation and thermokarst development. We suggest that this is due to little thermal buffering from soil organic layers and near surface vegetation, and the presence of near surface ground ice. Observed maximum thaw depths at our sites are already exceeding those projected to occur by 2090 under RCP 4.5.

final note:

when you say,

Quote

there are also numerous studies showing that significant amounts of the methane are digested by microbes before the bubbles rise, so that gases in the bubbles are not methane.

The studies show some PORTION of the methane is digested, none of them showing levels greater than 80%. Your assertion that 'therefore the bubbles are not methane' is so obviously incorrect that you appear to be a bald-faced liar. This is why nobody likes you.

I would like to learn more about his 'great work' however, he tends to make sweeping dismissive statements that are not factually based, like the idea that whatever those bubbles are they are not methane because most (estimates are actually a range between 25% and 75% or so) of the methane is digested on the way up.

That car cannot crash into that wall because the brakes removed most of the forward momentum. . .

I would like to learn more about his 'great work' however, he tends to make sweeping dismissive statements that are not factually based, like the idea that whatever those bubbles are they are not methane because most (estimates are actually a range between 25% and 75% or so) of the methane is digested on the way up.

That car cannot crash into that wall because the brakes removed most of the forward momentum. . .

It matters at what speed the car crashes into the wall. At 5 mph, the paint might be scraped. At 75 mph, the occupants of the vehicle are probably dead.

Catastrophists routinely ignore any evidence that contradicts with their highly improbable disaster scenarios. They complain that "consensus scientists" ignore the threat. Yet it's the catastrophists who ignore the science.

I spent a lot of time arguing with climate deniers in the past decade, so I have a lot of experience dealing with people who deny the climate science. Catastrophists are basically a form of climate science deniers.

This article shows that most of the methane release from subsea permafrost gets consumed as it goes through the unfrozen sediments above the subsea permafrost. This implies that breakdown of the subsea permafrost is not the source for methane detected in bubbles that break the surface.

Submarine permafrost degradation has been invoked as a cause for recent observations of methane emissions from the seabed to the water column and atmosphere of the East Siberian shelf. Sediment drilled 52 m down from the sea ice in Buor Khaya Bay, central Laptev Sea revealed unfrozen sediment overlying ice‐bonded permafrost. Methane concentrations in the overlying unfrozen sediment were low (mean 20 µM) but higher in the underlying ice‐bonded submarine permafrost (mean 380 µM). In contrast, sulfate concentrations were substantially higher in the unfrozen sediment (mean 2.5 mM) than in the underlying submarine permafrost (mean 0.1 mM). Using deduced permafrost degradation rates, we calculate potential mean methane efflux from degrading permafrost of 120 mg m−2 yr−1 at this site. However, a drop of methane concentrations from 190 µM to 19 µM and a concomitant increase of methane δ13C from −63‰ to −35‰ directly above the ice‐bonded permafrost suggest that methane is effectively oxidized within the overlying unfrozen sediment before it reaches the water column. High rates of methane ebullition into the water column observed elsewhere are thus unlikely to have ice‐bonded permafrost as their source.

Catastrophists routinely ignore any evidence that contradicts with their highly improbable disaster scenarios. They complain that "consensus scientists" ignore the threat. Yet it's the catastrophists who ignore the science.

Sudden Arctic methane release is not "highly improbable". It is unlikely that enough methane is released so that global temperatures rise by a few degree in a few years. It is likely that as arctic sea ice vanishes and the NH warms, more greenhouse gasses will be released, methane included. The more and faster it warms the more methane will be released, the more it will warm. It will warm really fast after the first BOE. Methane release must increase significantly, particularly local warming.

That is the simple truth. Will methane and warming spiral out of control after the first BOE? Unknown. It hasn't happened this fast anywhere on record. All scientists can do is study the fastest warming of the past, multiply it times ten and infer.

Granted their inferences are informed by the laws of physics, decades of rigorous studies, sweat and tears. One would be a fool to ignore what their models say. Sadly, there is no double blind experiment in climate science and we are dealing with the future unknown.

There is significant evidence suggesting the possibility of runaway methane emissions that would make our lives miserable. We shouldn't wait and find out. We should do everything possible to not find out if there is a methane bomb or not. We should act as if there is going to be one and avoid it at all cost.

Logged

I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

This article shows that most of the methane release from subsea permafrost gets consumed as it goes through the unfrozen sediments above the subsea permafrost. This implies that breakdown of the subsea permafrost is not the source for methane detected in bubbles that break the surface.

Submarine permafrost degradation has been invoked as a cause for recent observations of methane emissions from the seabed to the water column and atmosphere of the East Siberian shelf. Sediment drilled 52 m down from the sea ice in Buor Khaya Bay, central Laptev Sea revealed unfrozen sediment overlying ice‐bonded permafrost. Methane concentrations in the overlying unfrozen sediment were low (mean 20 µM) but higher in the underlying ice‐bonded submarine permafrost (mean 380 µM). In contrast, sulfate concentrations were substantially higher in the unfrozen sediment (mean 2.5 mM) than in the underlying submarine permafrost (mean 0.1 mM). Using deduced permafrost degradation rates, we calculate potential mean methane efflux from degrading permafrost of 120 mg m−2 yr−1 at this site. However, a drop of methane concentrations from 190 µM to 19 µM and a concomitant increase of methane δ13C from −63‰ to −35‰ directly above the ice‐bonded permafrost suggest that methane is effectively oxidized within the overlying unfrozen sediment before it reaches the water column. High rates of methane ebullition into the water column observed elsewhere are thus unlikely to have ice‐bonded permafrost as their source.

The issue of thermokarst abrupt thawing is the current info that needs to be incorporated into the models.

I have not been too concerned about ESAS CH4 emissions since Semiletov and Shakova (I think in 2015) did their subsea ESAS carbon core sample survey where they determined that the LENA river sediment had very low carbon present. Though long-term all bets are off depending on what kind of warming we get at toward the end of this century.

"In the paper, the authors showed that a process in which one type of molecule trapped in hydrate is exchanged for another (called guest molecule exchange) is a two-stage process and not a single, simultaneous process, as it was previously thought to be.

The computer simulations indicate that the process can be repeated with increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide until the reservoir becomes saturated. The authors said that unlike some methods of carbon storage, this provides a ready incentive for industry to begin storing carbon dioxide, a major driver of climate change."

This article shows that most of the methane release from subsea permafrost gets consumed as it goes through the unfrozen sediments above the subsea permafrost. This implies that breakdown of the subsea permafrost is not the source for methane detected in bubbles that break the surface.

Submarine permafrost degradation has been invoked as a cause for recent observations of methane emissions from the seabed to the water column and atmosphere of the East Siberian shelf. Sediment drilled 52 m down from the sea ice in Buor Khaya Bay, central Laptev Sea revealed unfrozen sediment overlying ice‐bonded permafrost. Methane concentrations in the overlying unfrozen sediment were low (mean 20 µM) but higher in the underlying ice‐bonded submarine permafrost (mean 380 µM). In contrast, sulfate concentrations were substantially higher in the unfrozen sediment (mean 2.5 mM) than in the underlying submarine permafrost (mean 0.1 mM). Using deduced permafrost degradation rates, we calculate potential mean methane efflux from degrading permafrost of 120 mg m−2 yr−1 at this site. However, a drop of methane concentrations from 190 µM to 19 µM and a concomitant increase of methane δ13C from −63‰ to −35‰ directly above the ice‐bonded permafrost suggest that methane is effectively oxidized within the overlying unfrozen sediment before it reaches the water column. High rates of methane ebullition into the water column observed elsewhere are thus unlikely to have ice‐bonded permafrost as their source.

The issue of thermokarst abrupt thawing is the current info that needs to be incorporated into the models.

I have not been too concerned about ESAS CH4 emissions since Semiletov and Shakova (I think in 2015) did their subsea ESAS carbon core sample survey where they determined that the LENA river sediment had very low carbon present. Though long-term all bets are off depending on what kind of warming we get at toward the end of this century.

No problem Jai. I think I was responding to another poster with the paper about the unfrozen layers of subsea permafrost and how microbes consume the methane from the permafrost layers below.

As to thermokarst lakes, there's new evidence that microbes can consume the methane produced by organic material at the bottom of the lake before it's released. This paper published in April 2019 finds evidence that microbes consume a large portion of the methane produced in the lakes before it rises to the surface. (Note that Walter Anthony, one of the authors on the paper you posted, is a co-author of this paper).

Microbial decomposition of thawed permafrost carbon in thermokarst lakes leads to the release of ancient carbon as the greenhouse gas methane (CH4), yet potential mitigating processes are not understood. Here, we report δ 13C–CH4 signatures in the pore water of a thermokarst lake sediment core that points towards in situ occurrence of anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM). Analysis of the microbial communities showed a natural enrichment in CH4-oxidizing archaeal communities that occur in sediment horizons at temperatures near 0 °C. These archaea also showed high rates of AOM in laboratory incubations. Calculation of the stable isotopes suggests that 41 to 83% of in situ dissolved CH4 is consumed anaerobically. Quantification of functional genes (mcrA) for anaerobic methanotrophic communities revealed up to 6.7 ± 0.7 × 105 copy numbers g−1 wet weight and showed similar abundances to bacterial 16S rRNA gene sequences in the sediment layers with the highest AOM rates. We conclude that these AOM communities are fueled by CH4 produced from permafrost organic matter degradation in the underlying sediments that represent the radially expanding permafrost thaw front beneath the lake. If these communities are widespread in thermokarst environments, they could have a major mitigating effect on the global CH4 emissions.

Yes, that was the paper I referenced and took exception to your comment on ALL of the methane being digested in situ vs. some or most of it. When you stated that the bubbles were not methane, I thought you were suggesting the thermokarst bubbles were not methane when the high end estimate is that only 41 to 83% of it becomes digested (and the rest moves to the atmosphere. Since the methane release at the surface of these ponds has been directly measured, it does not follow that all the CH4 gets digested in these circumstances. As warming continues and the rate of anaerobic digestion increases rapidly, the disassociation rates of total CH4 produced will go down as the production rates exceed decomposition. Again, this is more of a concern when we reach arctic ice free conditions by june 21 summer solstice at around 2065 and regional warming during this period is greater than 8C above the DMI arctic average for that day in the historical record.

Yes, that was the paper I referenced and took exception to your comment on ALL of the methane being digested in situ vs. some or most of it. When you stated that the bubbles were not methane, I thought you were suggesting the thermokarst bubbles were not methane when the high end estimate is that only 41 to 83% of it becomes digested (and the rest moves to the atmosphere. Since the methane release at the surface of these ponds has been directly measured, it does not follow that all the CH4 gets digested in these circumstances. As warming continues and the rate of anaerobic digestion increases rapidly, the disassociation rates of total CH4 produced will go down as the production rates exceed decomposition. Again, this is more of a concern when we reach arctic ice free conditions by june 21 summer solstice at around 2065 and regional warming during this period is greater than 8C above the DMI arctic average for that day in the historical record.

Jai,

I haven't meant to imply that there are no increased methane emissions due to warming. I've been arguing that the increases in methane emissions are not likely to be so fast as to produce a massive spike in temperatures and set off a feedback cycle that will result in runaway warming. Many of the catastrophists just add up every new source of fossil fuels emissions from every news article or blog post they read and wail that it's too late to stop runaway warming. The point of my posts is to demonstrate that it's not too late.

I think it's still possible to keep global temperature increases to around 2C if we can transition to a decarbonized economy. If we stop producing fossil fuels (which seems likely by 2065 given the pace of installations of renewable energy power plants and the projections for the transition to electric vehicles), we can more than offset the increased methane emissions from the Arctic with reductions in human emissions of methane, and more importantly, CO2.

Evidence suggests that 5–15% of the vast pool of soil carbon stored in northern permafrost ecosystems could be emitted as greenhouse gases by 2100 under the current path of global warming.

However, direct measurements of changes in soil carbon remain scarce, largely because ground subsidence that occurs as the permafrost soils begin to thaw confounds the traditional quantification of carbon pools based on fixed depths or soil horizons.

This issue is overcome when carbon is quantified in relation to a fixed ash content, which uses the relatively stable mineral component of soil as a metric for pool comparisons through time. We applied this approach to directly measure soil carbon pool changes over five years in experimentally warmed and ambient tundra ecosystems at a site in Alaska where permafrost is degrading due to climate change.

We show a loss of soil carbon of 5.4% per year (95% confidence interval: 1.0, 9.5) across the site. Our results point to lateral hydrological export as a potential pathway for these surprisingly large losses. This research highlights the potential to make repeat soil carbon pool measurements at sentinel sites across the permafrost region, as this feedback to climate change may be occurring faster than previously thought.

Summary

Quote

“This study was novel because we used new methods to directly track the soil carbon losses, and they were much higher than we previously thought,” Schuur said. “This suggests that not only is carbon being lost through greenhouse gases directly to the atmosphere but also dissolved in waters that flow through the soil and likely carried carbon into streams, leaves and rivers.”

Thawing permafrost affects plant and soils in tundra ecosystems, and ultimately the storage of carbon in permafrost soils. The surface of tundra subsides as ice in permafrost melts and drains. This can mask the loss of soil carbon through time that occurs as a result of soil microbial activity converting soil organic matter into greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane. Accounting for ground subsidence as a result of thaw revealed that substantial quantities of soil carbon were loss both directly to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, but also dissolve in water that drained from this site. Soil carbon loss from permafrost ecosystems that ends up in the atmosphere at greenhouse gases can ultimately accelerate climate change

Quantification of the present and future contribution to atmospheric methane (CH4) from lakes, wetlands, fluvial systems, and, potentially, coastal waters remains an important unfinished task for balancing the global CH4 budget. Discriminating between these sources is crucial, especially across climate‐sensitive Arctic and subarctic landscapes and waters. Yet basic underlying uncertainties remain, in such areas as total wetland area and definitions of wetlands, which can lead to conflation of wetlands and small ponds in regional studies. We discuss how in situ sampling choices, remote sensing limitations, and isotopic signature overlaps can lead to unintentional double‐counting of CH4 emissions and propose that this double‐counting can explain a pan‐Arctic bottom‐up estimate from published sources, 59.7 Tg yr−1 (range 36.9–89.4 Tg yr−1) greatly exceeding the most recent top‐down inverse modeled estimate of the pan‐Arctic CH4 budget (23 ± 5 Tg yr−1).

Quote

1 Introduction

At first glance, balancing the CH4 budget should be simple. Decades long records of atmospheric CH4 exist, and with a lifetime of less than 10 years in the atmosphere [Prather et al., 2012], we should be able to construct a box model where known CH4 sources minus known CH4 sinks equals the current atmospheric burden. Though the atmospheric burden is well known, detailed accounting of both sources and sinks remains a tremendous challenge [Kirschke et al., 2013], somewhat due to potentially large CH4 sources newly noted in the past 10 years. Many of these potential new sources are regional, and many lie in the Arctic where warming temperatures may be more favorable for production and release of CH4 from long‐stored permafrost carbon (C), potentially contributing to a permafrost C warming feedback [Schuur et al., 2015; Vonk et al., 2013]. It remains a goal to reconcile the top‐down Arctic CH4 budget (e.g., calculating backward from the amount of CH4 observed in the atmosphere to sources), with bottom‐up budgets (e.g., summing the CH4 sources and sinks to determine the atmospheric burden). We provide here an updated, but rough, bottom‐up inventory, based on published estimates of various categories of natural Arctic CH4 sources, in Table 1. Although we concentrate on the bottom‐up budget in our discussion here, the top‐down budget is not without issues. Top‐down inverse modeling estimates for the Arctic are limited by relatively few atmospheric measurements in the Arctic [Bruhwiler et al., 2014], tropospheric modeling capabilities [Houweling et al., 1999], and uncertainty surrounding the hydroxyl radical, the primary atmospheric sink for CH4 [Montzka et al., 2011]. But top‐down budgets are mass balanced by design, which is not the case for the bottom‐up sums of independent studies.

a Recent bottom‐up estimates for various Arctic CH4 source flux strengths are sorted into categories of lakes and ponds, rivers and streams, reservoirs, Arctic Ocean, ESAS, and wetlands. Estimates are based on extrapolations of measurements, except for the three process models noted. Note that the latitude bands differ, which partly account for the ultimate bottom‐up uncertainty seen here. Arctic Ocean flux is from the reported 2 mg m−2 d−1 extrapolated over 10 × 106 km2 of seasonally ice‐free Arctic Ocean regions for 100 ice‐free days [Kort et al., 2012]. Rivers and streams high estimate is based on the Stanley et al. [2016] global fluvial flux database distributed into fluvial surface areas reported by Bastviken et al. [2011]. Sum uses averages of the all estimates per category. Minimum uses category low values and lower bound of the Wik et al. [2016b] lake estimates; maximum uses category high values and upper bounds of ORCHIDEE wetland model and the Wik et al. [2016b] lake estimates. Including subarctic and boreal wetlands from 45°N to 60°N would add 34 Tg yr−1 to the Zhang et al. [2004] wetland estimate.

Quote

There are a wide variety of potential sources of CH4 in the waters of the ESAS. As the ESAS was above sea level at the last glaciation, it contains substantial subsea permafrost and organic material originally formed and frozen subaerially [Dmitrenko et al., 2011]. Additionally, the Laptev and East Siberian Seas are strongly influenced by terrestrial organic carbon input from rivers, providing a modern source of C to the seas [Charkin et al., 2011; Semiletov et al., 2005]. Complicating matters further, the age of the carbon in the present day terrestrial organic matter source may be old or young, C released from thawing permafrost—or C in organic material produced in the annual cycle of plant growth. Coastal erosion of thawing permafrost shorelines provides yet another carbon input into the Arctic system [Lantuit et al., 2013]. All of these marine and shore processes might contribute C to the Arctic CH4 cycle.

This study was novel because we used new methods to directly track the soil carbon losses, and they were much higher than we previously thought,”

Guess no one double counted the new carbon?

From the news release that was posted upthread:

Quote

Our results point to lateral hydrological export as a potential pathway for these surprisingly large losses. This research highlights the potential to make repeat soil carbon pool measurements at sentinel sites across the permafrost region, as this feedback to climate change may be occurring faster than previously thought.

The new methods to detect the carbon losses related to tracking how it flows out of the soil through the water. That water ultimately winds up in rivers, lakes, wetlands or the Ocean, where it is currently counted (and as the study showed, potentially double-counted).

Could any of this anomalous warming in the ESS and Alaska be from localized methane emissions? How soon does methane contribute warming once released?

<Edit Neven: Ask questions like this one in the 'stupid' questions thread, or the methane thread.>

...

<Edit Neven: ... No, it shouldn't be discussed here, because this thread is for near-real time monitoring of conditions in the Arctic. If you can point to reliable near-real time data graphs or maps that have a direct influence on the outcome of this melting season, and that can be compared to previous years, please do so. If not, take it up in other threads.>

Understood, appreciated!

I can "point" to it indeed - the guys who did this neat animation (press "play" button in the bottom right corner; it takes a bit to load) seem to have plenty good data on the subject. And those fellows are quite reliable bunch. But for now i am unable to "compare to previous years" due to particularities of data retrieval they offer. But perhaps someone else can do it for us here?

And please allow me to just briefly answer Oscilidous' questions, as these answers can help more than just him, i'm sure. I promise i won't go any further on this topic, too.

1. yes, quite some of that high heat could well be caused by local (regional) methane emissions, since methane's local warming potential is ~1000 times higher than CO2 and as you can see from the 1st link i gave just above in this post, both Alaska and ESAS have significantly elevated methane levels presently.

2. once methane reaches athmosphere - it starts to contribute extra warming instantly, as surface always emits IR (sunny days more, cloudy days / nights less) and methane is rather dilute presently, means every molecule is pretty effective at adding extra greenhouse effect; some technical info about how it all works can be found here.

Thank you very much for that link. This is the first methane mapping link I've seen since 2013. I wish they offered a reanalysis map instead of a forecast map. But at least the forecast likely shows current methane levels across the arctic on the first frame. That link,again is:

For those of us concerned about the potential of the arctic seafloor to release large amounts of methane, my interpretation would be "no, the arctic seafloor is not a major emitter of methane as of today." I suspect we might see substantial release as the ESAS area becomes denuded of ice and the shallow waters warm later in the season. I plan to keep an eye on that.

Could any of this anomalous warming in the ESS and Alaska be from localized methane emissions? How soon does methane contribute warming once released?

<Edit Neven: Ask questions like this one in the 'stupid' questions thread, or the methane thread.>

...

<Edit Neven: ... No, it shouldn't be discussed here, because this thread is for near-real time monitoring of conditions in the Arctic. If you can point to reliable near-real time data graphs or maps that have a direct influence on the outcome of this melting season, and that can be compared to previous years, please do so. If not, take it up in other threads.>

Understood, appreciated!

I can "point" to it indeed - the guys who did this neat animation (press "play" button in the bottom right corner; it takes a bit to load) seem to have plenty good data on the subject. And those fellows are quite reliable bunch. But for now i am unable to "compare to previous years" due to particularities of data retrieval they offer. But perhaps someone else can do it for us here?

And please allow me to just briefly answer Oscilidous' questions, as these answers can help more than just him, i'm sure. I promise i won't go any further on this topic, too.

1. yes, quite some of that high heat could well be caused by local (regional) methane emissions, since methane's local warming potential is ~1000 times higher than CO2 and as you can see from the 1st link i gave just above in this post, both Alaska and ESAS have significantly elevated methane levels presently.

2. once methane reaches athmosphere - it starts to contribute extra warming instantly, as surface always emits IR (sunny days more, cloudy days / nights less) and methane is rather dilute presently, means every molecule is pretty effective at adding extra greenhouse effect; some technical info about how it all works can be found here.

Thank you very much for that link. This is the first methane mapping link I've seen since 2013. I wish they offered a reanalysis map instead of a forecast map. But at least the forecast likely shows current methane levels across the arctic on the first frame. That link,again is:

For those of us concerned about the potential of the arctic seafloor to release large amounts of methane, my interpretation would be "no, the arctic seafloor is not a major emitter of methane as of today." I suspect we might see substantial release as the ESAS area becomes denuded of ice and the shallow waters warm later in the season. I plan to keep an eye on that.

Focusing just on China, it appears that a very high level of methane (China appears to have a large area of more than 10,000 ppb methane) doesn't necessarily lead to an immediate spike in temperatures (with normal to below normal temperatures in the areas with high methane).

I think it's still possible to keep global temperature increases to around 2C if we can transition to a decarbonized economy. If we stop producing fossil fuels (which seems likely by 2065 given the pace of installations of renewable energy power plants and the projections for the transition to electric vehicles), we can more than offset the increased methane emissions from the Arctic with reductions in human emissions of methane, and more importantly, CO2.

Ken,

I am sorry but you are incorrect, the only way we stay below 2C is with massive amounts of global dimming geoengineering, combined with a comprehensive multi-decadal industrial atmospheric carbon removal program initiated on a global scale.

I do appreciate your attempt to mitigate (pun unintended) some of the doomsay assertions. I am also of the opinion that we won't see a massive methane burst from the arctic until 2065 at the earliest but that the slowly increasing (and jump after June 21st ice free conditions) emissions from frozen soils, temperature forests, and, eventually southern ocean venting, will be enough to produce 2X CO2 emissions conditions by 2100 even if all emissions are halted today.

Renewable energy projections? Seems to me that renewable energy is barely making a dent and there's far more lip service than action. The US federal government, arguably the most important player, doesn't even acknowledge that anthropogenic climate change exists...

Made a new video. Soil layers of permafrost that scientists expected to remain frozen for at least 70 more years have already begun thawing.

<SNIPPAGE>

Excellent video Prokaryotes! I live on the boundary of continuous/discontinuous permafrost; monitoring retrogressive thaw slumps and living with warm permafrost is everyday life here. There are permafrosts dated to 400K BP here- and they are thawing.

Ken, as long as the water that methane bubbles pass through contains significant dissolved oxygen, the process of bacterial oxidation of methane will continue. However, because methane oxidation consumes dissolved oxygen there is a rate limit on how much methane can be consumed. That limit is controlled by the rate of oxygen supply, minus other natural processes that consume oxygen, such as the oxidation of organic matter in river water inflows into the Siberian shelf.

Some of the catastrophists are clearly wrong, but you cannot correctly assume that all methane bubbles will continue to be oxidize as the rate of methane release increases. Global methane data published in the scientific literature shows that global methane levels are increasing again, but the Arctic is not a primary source of the increased emissions. So far, so good. However, we need to remember that there are physical-chemical limits on oxidation rates.

Here they age some of the permafrost at 700K- although there is some scepticism and ice could have persisted through so many interglacials, the evidence seems credible. Not that it matters much, but I've met many of these researchers and Froese is conservative, not given to hyperbole.Extract: The relict ice wedge overlain by the Gold Run tephra represents the oldest ice known in North America and is evidence that permafrost has been a long-term component of the North American cyrosphere. Importantly, this finding demonstrates that permafrost has survived within the discontinuous permafrost zone since at least the early-Middle Pleistocene. This age range includes several glacial-interglacial cycles, including marine isotope stages 5e and 11, both considered to be longer and warmer than the present interglaciation

"Scientists continue to offer competing hypotheses to explain the global uptick, and there is no shortage of potential suspects.

Only three elements of the global methane budget are large enough to be plausible culprits: microbial emissions (from livestock, agriculture, and wetlands); fossil fuel emissions; and the chemical process by which methane is scrubbed from the atmosphere."

Ice sheet dynamics of the past likely caused fault movements in the Earth's crust, resulting in seabed methane release in ~1200 m water depth offshore Svalbard, an archipelago in the Norwegian Arctic.

"Our results show similar patterns over the last two ice ages, from 160,000 years ago through today. The new data suggest a link between changing continental ice volumes and deep-sea methane emission in the Arctic," says Tobias Himmler, researcher at the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU) and principle author of the study.

After measuring the amounts of radioactive isotopes uranium and thorium found in the seep carbonates, scientists at the British Geological Survey were able to calculate the ages of the carbonate pieces. This data reveals three separate 10,000- to 20,000-year long methane emission episodes over the last 160,000 years. Methane was released when thick ice sheets moved in to cover Svalbard and the Barents Sea area, and later after the ice diminished.

"During ice sheet growth, the extra weight of the ice presses the Earth's crust downward. Following the melting of the ice, the crust rises again. Our data indicate that methane off western Svalbard emanated from the seabed primarily when ice sheet movements activated faults. How much methane was emitted, however, we don't know," explains Himmler.

Previous research has shown that methane emissions have occurred consistently since the last ice age, beginning about 23,000 years ago. Scientists from NGU and CAGE have now managed to -literally- drill further back in time using the MARUM's MeBo70 sea floor drill rig. The drilled seep carbonate samples reveal that there have been at least two older methane emission episodes in the past, between about 160,000 to 133,000 years and 50,000 to 40,000 years ago.

"Here we find the largest oxygen free area in the oceans - an area of more than 1 million square kilometers, where part of the water column is completely oxygen-free. This oxygen-free water contains methane.

Microorganisms remove 80 pct. of the methane produced"

The big question now is which microorganisms are at play and how? The researchers have got a hint that highly specialized bacteria and so-called archaea (bacterial-like organisms) are involved."

"Although there is a lot of energy in methane, methane as a molecule is difficult to activate and break apart, says Professor Thamdrup.

"Finding out how microorganisms do the job is not only important for understanding the process. In the long term, it may also potentially be of biotechnological value. Maybe it can help us convert methane into other useful products."

Univ. of S.Denmark says "What can we learn from the bacteria?" -> products & exploitation.

This is from the natural sciences no less. Behaving like corporations subsidised by us.There probably are exceptions but I see in biotech and microbiology absolutely NO RESPECT for other lifeforms and ecosystems.

Other lifeform = potential product. Nefarious.

Logged

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly" - Bertrand Russell